Preseason Pistons at Bucks ~ Oct 19th

Before I do my recap (I taped it, took some notes), there's a couple comments I have to make in response to Lee...

Lee356 said:

Wow. A whole lot of great stuff from our bench. Evans can flat out shoot. But he is a zero on ball handling. Dupree ... is a zero on ball handling. The two together are bad news for an offense. Anyone notice the couple times Amir Johnson handled the ball? This guy showed me more there on ball handling than Mo Evans for the whole game, and equaled Dupree for a whole game.

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no offense, but johnson touched the ball twice. there was no way to tell his ball handling skills...and evans/dupree seem perfectly fine to me with ball handling. they're not going to drive through the lane and 4 defenders, but they do what's necessary in the offense.

Lee356 said:

Indeed, the best I saw the ball brought up was actually the one time by Darko, who still looks like a guard handling that ball on the open floor.

Okay my reply is going to sound skewed because I basically only wrote down the highlights and none of the bad things. Essentially I'm going to sound like Blaha doing a broadcast. I only wrote stuff down about the 2nd and 4th quarters since there's really no need to discuss the starters. I even timestamped everything lol.

i'll start with a sweet 1-minute sequence (7:00-6:00) in the 2nd quarter. btw the 2nd quarter was basically the Ackers/Evans show.

6:55 - dupree sweet block on mo williams6:51 - bell is holding onto the ball and evans just finds a way to grab it, and rips it away from him for the steal6:25 - acker dishes a nice pass to a wide open evans for 2 points - while the ball is in the air, maxiel is out of position but shoves his butt into bell and knocks him backwards, and then gives him a little extra shove after the basket. he didn't have box-out position on the rebound...but he certainly created his own!!6:11 - bucks mishandle the ball, acker completes an excellent no-look pass from halfcourt to dupree under the basket for a dunk - bucks call timeout

4:16 - bogut has an open lane to the basket running the ball upcourt, instead goes to pass back to guard, acker anticipates for the steal3:22 - acker gets beat to the basket but blocks the shot1:30 - evans has a suffocating 2-handed block (looked like volleyball)1:08 - acker with another steal0:40 - dupree jumps over bogut to snag a rebound0:24 - acker drains a 3-pointer 2 feet from behind the line

2nd quarter - maxiel 6 rebounds, acker 5 points/5 assists

Again not commenting about the starters, except someone was mic'ed close to Sheed and we get to hear some gems...'god d*** rip!!' and 'ahhh sh*t!!', he also had a shaq-like dunk in traffic, and we found out ben is shooting 22% from the free throw line in the preseason.

4th quarter:

9:53 - mcdyess has a very ugly facial expression on the bench8:06/8:00 - dupree and darko get a couple nice blocks

*sidenote* - evans commits 2 charging fouls and a couple bad passes in the 4th ... 5/6 shooting at this point but is trying to do too much

6:13 - acker good spin move and knocks down a 2 pointer

*sidnote* amir johnson kinda looks a bit like tracy morgan from SNL

4:16 - acker hits another tough shot - a floater from the free throw line2:35 - maxiel sweet dunk in traffic2:13 - maxiel block1:50 - glynny takes a VERY ill-advised drive to the basket, throws up a random shot that misses1:26 - maxiel another nice shot from the FT area

1:05 - this play warrants special mention. evans gets himself a nice block...in the meantime glynny LANDS on top of one of the bucks' players, elbow on his shoulder. after the elbow, he proceeds to FACEWASH the guy like tayshaun did to the one fan after his block on reggie in the '04 playoffs. THEN, he takes the guy down from behind and the guy falls on glynny. comedic genius that bill laimbeer certainly appreciated.

1:03 - maxiel yet again, goes under the basket and turns around midair to slam home a dunk, he's had a good final 3 minutes, he just abuses people and loves to go after rebounds

Okay since I only posted the good, here's the bad. The bucks KILLED us in points-in-the-paint, I think at half it was like 35-13? Whatever it was, it was bad. Acker played well but he still had quite a few rookie mistakes...telegraphed some passes that got stolen, sometimes lost his man on defense. Definitely some rookie mistakes made, but Acker and Evans looked great overall, and if Maxiel looked pretty good as well.

Okay my reply is going to sound skewed because I basically only wrote down the highlights and none of the bad things. Essentially I'm going to sound like Blaha doing a broadcast.

Again not commenting about the starters, except someone was mic'ed close to Sheed and we get to hear some gems...'god d*** rip!!' and 'ahhh sh*t!!', he also had a shaq-like dunk in traffic, and we found out ben is shooting 22% from the free throw line in the preseason.

Both teams were working on different things. Even though the starters were off you know with our regular rotation that would have been a Piston win.

If its that important to them to get a pre-season win then well so be it. I am sure the Pistons will return the favor when the games count. Bucks almost lost a player with a knee collision.

I am glad Flip stuck with the script. This is a key point in a lot of players careers - Acker, Dupree, Maxiel, Evans. We need to keep seeing what they have.

Very encouraging stuff out there by Acker and Evans. I like Dupree, Dumars likes him. If Dumars likes him then why did he sign Evans? They duplicate each other as far as what the team needs out of them.

I posted in a different thread that Acker brings a new dimension as a combo guard who can play both guard positions as well as shoot 3's. So its good that he got some time out there.

What to do with Maxiel? He looks like he belongs on the team but where in the heck can he play at? Some of those dunks had such strength to them. Already I can at least say that Maxiel is an upgrade over Ham.

If any of you guys didn't hear it flip said he wanted to fix many things because he didn't like what he saw. GOOD NEWS, many people thought this guy was going to be soft on the players looks like he's going to be strict (in a good way).

We lost the game because of 22 turnovers. If the Piston players would not make so many lazy passes we'd probably have only around 10 or 12 TO's which would make the bucks do a lot worse on offense.

This is the first game i watched all the way, and from what I saw Alex Acker looks very good, i don't know why a lot of people think he will be the guy that gets cut. He had a very good game with 13 points, 5 boards, and 9 assists on 4-6 shooting. Maurice Evans did very well too with 20 points, and 4 boards off of 6-7 shooting and 4-4 from beyond the arc. This is the first game Darko struggled hope to see him shine against miami this saturday.

^^ yeah, i liked how Flip was pretty disappointed with the game last night. it wasn't the depressing/i'm-going-to-slit-my-wrists-now speech that LB used to give. Flip was a little more thoughtful in his responses regarding the team's shortcomings, and i appreciate listening to those details as a basketball fan.

i taped the game, so i'll watch it today. i'm excited to see Acker's PG play, since we keep hearing that JoeD is high on him.

It is hard not to like Max's aggressiveness and strength, but he has a way to go mentally to be a Piston I don't believe that there was one time that he got the ball and did not put it up regardless of where he was on the court.

I don't know about the Bucks but we were on the second half of a back to back which could explain the sluggishness of the whole team.

It is hard not to like Max's aggressiveness and strength, but he has a way to go mentally to be a Piston I don't believe that there was one time that he got the ball and did not put it up regardless of where he was on the court.

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He had to. He was the 3rd leading scorer (10), and leading rebounder (9) for the Pistons. Near double-double.

It may be Corliss syndrome but I for one loved his tenacity and reckless abandon pursuing the hoop everytime he got the ball. His game is not passing the ball around. It's attack, attack, attack. Punish the rim and defender. Force the issue with power. Without J-Max, we had no paint game whatsoever.

Did anyone see those slams? Brutality. I'm drooling at the prospect of seeing J-Max go at his fellow UC alum K-Mart. I wonder if this kid practices the way he plays. We might have to suit up Dice and Ben in those inflatable Sumo suits or the IR could grow fast!

Pistons looked lazy last night, and TJFord looked like he was drinking 32oz espressos during commercial breaks, great to see TJ back, he can really legitimize the Bucks and with us , Indy, Chi & Clev, the central once again may be the best division in basketball top to bottom.

This indeed was a game where the organization needed to get some looks at players. Acker had a GREAT stat line running the point, has a smooth shooting touch. The issue I had with Ack at the point is that he solely runs it from the top and NEVER tries to make a play, this can indeed stagnate an offense. Ack often picks his dribble up too early too much, DAMN there has to be a happy medium between him and Arroyo. Acker might not ready for the NBA just yet, I honestly believe that if he went overseas for just one season that he would come back and easily compete for a 2nd string PG on at least a dozen NBA teams, much like Charlie Bell. All that said I feel as if Acker can really develop into a solid NBA player. CUT HIM!!!!! sounds harsh, but Ack is better than a IR PG listed as 4th on the depth chart behind CB, CA, & LH. The Det News is reporting that Joe knows if he cuts Ack about 4 teams will be there ready to pick hm up, and truthfully he deserves that opportunity, if Ack was 19, keep him, but he deserves a better opportunity than what the Pistons can give him right now (actually so does Dupree). Worse case scenario we cut him, another team signs him, and he's a FA next summer (because you know he's only going to get a 1 year deal) and we bring him in with a guaranteed contract, like we did Dupree last season. So long as Joe gives him the WE WANT YOU BACK HERE NEXT YEAR!!!! speech.

Man I want this kid to get some significant clock this season. There are going to be some games this year where I truely feel he could be effective. Dyess' post game is stricly fade away jumpers these days, he no longer gets the ball in the post and attacks the basket. I could see nights where we go with Maxiel instead of Dyess or Darko and he will give a teams backup PF nightmares all night long. On nights where we play soft teams that don't really want to bang, he can just bruise people. Now his height sometimes is an issue, but as long as he's not battling a 1st unit 6'10"+ froncourt player, he can hold his own and then some. I don't think that there is another player in the league coming off the bench under 6'10" that will be able to check this kids post game. Man if we can keep him and Darko together, and convince Maxiel to accept a Corliss type role on this team, WATCH OUT!!!!

Just noticed that there is a whole week before the next preseason game and it's against Dallas. This is an opp for Flip to show his stuff.

1) We just had an awful pre-season showing with bad shot selection, poor execution, poor energy, poor defensive rebounding and too many to's, way too much dribble penetration by the oponent.

2) He has a whole week to fix the problems above, how effective will he be.

3) We get to play a team we just lost to after the week is up. This is the most ideal time to display the corrections that should have been made over the cousre of a week.

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We do have a game against the Heat on Saturday... but your points are well taken (especially the dribble penetration)...
In a week we should have the final roster set... this gives em a week to play regular rotations and get the roles assigned.
Looking forward to the Heat game... sounds like Fatoine is coming off the bench... I'd love to see Sup-a-Dup tomahawk on his skull!
Wonder if Flip sticks with his youngsters.

I'm getting a bit tired of these and, judging by last night's performance, so are they players. Let's get the season started.

I would like to see true, regular-season game rotations for our next two games. Starters playing more minutes and reserves playing the minutes they will be getting. Then for the final one we can go back to playing the reserves heavier minutes as it falls on the second day of back-to-backs (I believe).

This is a helluva decision between Dupree and Acker. Not many teams have more than 15 NBA-caliber players on their squads, so I guess it's a good problem to have. ASB seems to believe Dupree has had the better showing but the P's may think it more important to have depth at the 1. I wonder, if Hunter were healthy, if Dupree would have a better shot. Right now, if either CB or CA go down, we're really in a bind.

I've been pretty impressed with the play of our bench overall. This team legitimately goes 12 deep with players that are ready to contribute this year, which is remarkable (CA, CD, Evans, Dyess, Darko, Davis, and Hunter off the bench).

However, I'm getting a strange sense that the team isn't quite ready to go, either offensively or defensively. That concerns me a bit because we have a tough early-season schedule, and we'll need to be ready. I don't want to dig ourselves another hole the way we did early in the season last year.